Jalan Malioboro

Jalan Malioboro is centrally located in downtown Yogyakarta. The street stretches from Tugu Railway Station to the Sultan's Keraton, spanning across some 2 1/2 kilometres in length. Major roads in the city such as Jl Jenderal Sudirman, Jl Mangkubumi, Jl P. Senopati, Jl Sultan Agung, Jl KH A Dahlan and Jl Pasar Kembang will converge at this street.

Without doubt Jl Malioboro is the most famous shopping promenade in the city. The street probably has the most concentration of small and personalized sidewalk shops selling anything from exquisite Javanese handicrafts to funky clothes.

Jalan Malioboro (Malioboro Street) is a major shopping street in Yogyakarta, Indonesia; the name is also used more generally for the neighborhood around the street. It runs north from the Yogyakarta kraton (palace) towards the roads that lead to either Surakarta to the east, or Magelang to the north, as well as Mount Merapi. This is in itself is significant to many of the local population, the north south orientation between the palace and the volcano being of importance.

The street is the centre of Yogyakarta’s largest tourist district; many hotels and restaurants are located nearby. Sidewalks on both sides of the street are crowded with small stalls selling a variety of goods. In the evening several open-air streetside restaurants, called lesehan, operate along the street.

Less obvious to the tourist, but more for the local population, side streets, lanes and structures that lead on to Malioboro are as important as the street itself.

The street was for many years two-way, but by the 1980s had become one way only, from the railway line (where it starts) to the south – to Beringharjo markets, where it ends. The largest, oldest Dutch era hotel, Hotel Garuda, is located on the street’s northern end, on the eastern side adjacent to the railway line. It has the former Dutch era Prime Minister’s complex, the kepatihan, on the eastern side.

For many years in the 1980s and later, a cigarette advertisement was placed on the first building south of the railway line – or effectively the last building on Malioboro, which advertised Marlboro cigarettes, no doubt appealing to locals and foreigners who would see a pun with name of the street with a foreign product being advertised.

It does not reach the walls or grounds of the Yogyakarta palace, as Malioboro ceases in name adjacent to the very large market Beringharjo (on the eastern side as well). From this point the street changes name and has on the western side the former Governors residence, and on the eastern side the old Dutch Fort Vredenburg.

While the street itself looks modern and colourful, a closer look will reveal its old-world charm in the form of refurbished colonial-age shop houses.

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